Iowa's football payment to Iowa State decreases

Iowa's athletics department paid Iowa State $551,813 for last year's football game at Kinnick Stadium.

The schools' contract allows for the visiting team to receive 20 percent of the gate - post taxes - through 2012. From 2013 through the end of the contract in 2017, the home team keeps all gate revenue.

Iowa State received $616,383.48 after playing at Kinnick Stadium in 2008. Iowa received $381,000 from its 2009 game at Iowa State.

Iowa State's share is down from past years for two primary reasons, according to Mick Walker, Iowa's assistant athletics director for business operations. Iowa sold more season tickets last year than in previous years, which meant fewer available higher-priced single-game tickets. In other years, Iowa State was sold singularly for a premium single-game price. Last year four games had single-game ticket prices of $65 - Iowa State, Penn State, Wisconsin and Ohio State.

In the series' last four games at Kinnick Stadium, Iowa State has received $2.342 million or an average of about $585,000. In the series' last three games at Jack Trice Stadium, Iowa has received $1.1 million or an average of about $366,000.

The payment disparity is twofold. Kinnick Stadium holds more than 70,000, compared to Jack Trice Stadium, which has a capacity of around 55,000. Iowa pays Iowa State based on the specific game's date, while Iowa State figures its 20 percent payment to Iowa based on average revenue from all its home dates.

--

With the Big Ten Conference potentially going to a nine-game football schedule in the future, I asked Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta on Thursday how that might impact the future of Iowa-Iowa State.

"My first principle is we have to have seven home games," Barta said. "No matter how the schedule is put together, we need to have seven home games. After that, seeing how we'd love to continue our series with Iowa State, I've said that publicly. Hopefully we can work that out in terms of syncing with the Big Ten Conference, and I think we can."